


your two hands (making whirlpools in my blood)

by somethingdifferent



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Episode: s04e18 The Wall, F/M, Gen, Genderswap, i love my ladies in canon but how cool would it have been to have a female villain?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-22 07:03:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2498939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>She's never seen him desperate. Perhaps that's why he won't look her in the eye.</em>
</p>
<p>[gabrielle - sylar/peter; the wall au]</p>
            </blockquote>





	your two hands (making whirlpools in my blood)

_If it was lust or hunger_  
_& not love,_  
_if it was all that they accused us of_  
_(that we accused ourselves) --_  
_I do not think it matters_

 

THE EVIDENCE, ERICA M. JONG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**0**  

 

She wakes up and there's no one and nothing and nothing and nothing.

 

 

 

 

[He sold her like she was a piece of livestock. She has little memory of her childhood; things before the age of eight jumble together in a blur, the names and faces all seeming the same after a while. Sometimes she thinks she can remember his eyes, how black they looked in his head. This might've been someone else though. She might've been staring in a mirror.]

 

 

 

 

**1**

 

This first day she does nothing but walk the streets for hours, till her legs are sore and aching below the knee, till her feet are blistered and raw, and still she goes on, still she flies above the building and shouts until her vocal cords wear out and her voice stops completely. She had thought maybe there would be someone, but it (whatever it is) is so so complete. Not even Claire remains (she had counted on Claire remaining, but her tattoo is gone suddenly). Not even the rats in the walls of the house.

This first day she falls asleep somewhere in the aisle of a grocery store, the fluorescent lights flickering overhead, the stocked food spilled out over the ground. There's no sign of life, but there must've been not long ago. The way it was left, the way the city was left. They must've been trying to get out.

When she wakes up again, it hasn't changed. It doesn't go away.

 

 

 

 

[Nice young ladies, her mother told her, keep their legs together when they sit. They don't swear or smoke or chew with their mouths open. They certainly don't wear black or act sullen. They don't take on their father's professions. They get married and have children. They don't take up so much space, sprawled out on the benches in the subway. They don't take up any space at all, if possible. They don't steal. They don't cheat. They don't kill. They don't, her mother said. Now look up, Gabrielle, let me see you smile.]

 

 

 

 

**1**

 

She tries to get out of the city only once. None of the cars work anymore, the gasoline long since expired, and she hasn't wanted to use her powers in months, so she takes a bicycle that had been locked to the fence outside of the park near her house and she starts pedaling.

It takes days to reach the border of the city, days of riding the bike and sleeping on park benches like she used to in the early days and stopping every so often to shout up at the buildings, "Is anyone here?"

The answer, given through the emptiest silence she's ever heard (or not heard), is always a resounding no.

As she gets closer and closer to the border of the city, the bicycle is harder and harder to pedal. Her hands shake when they loosen their grip on the handlebars. Her eyes drift shut, and she falls off of the bike onto the road. When she tries crawling, she throws up onto the street, the rocks on the pavement cutting into the palms of her hands, only for them to be pushed back out and her skin to knit itself back together. She lays there for what seems like hours, and then she stands back up, brushes the gravel from her jeans, and gets back onto the bicycle.

She only starts to feel better when she faces the city again, with the sun shining bright on the glass windows, the streetlights, the towering billboard frames. They've all been torn or weathered too much to tell what they were advertising in the first place.

She imagines, sometimes, that it could be Coca-Cola. Or a Broadway show, a new one, a revival. Sometimes she imagines that they're campaign posters, that one day she'll look up and see Nathan Petrelli's hair. The faded lines of his crisp, black suit.

 

 

 

 

[There could have been a time where Gabrielle could've been somebody, someone important or useful or necessary, if she's being kind to herself that day. You are a beautiful, intelligent young lady, her mother used to tell her. Her father used to tell her this too, but then he left and didn't say anything to her at all. Gabrielle, you could be someone very special. If you just plucked your eyebrows, you could be a great beauty. If you stood up straight. Dear, why do you insist on wearing those glasses, you'll never catch a man like that. Leave me alone, I'm getting a headache. Gabrielle, you could be so beautiful, darling. You are so lovely. You were always so lovely. You used to be so lovely.]

 

 

 

 

**2**

 

Sometimes she considers trying again, trying to leave the city, trying to find someone in the maze of New York: the city is too large for everyone to be gone, she has to try again. Yet every time she thinks of it, thinks of the way she had pedaled to the border until her legs felt like they were being torn in two, she can't quite bring herself to give it another shot.

She only attempts the alternative once, ties a rope around the rafters in the shop and kicks away the chair. By morning she wakes up again, whole and breathing, the rope snapped in the middle.

 

 

 

 

 

[Elle had been different, to say the least. Elle and those eyes and that voice and this treacherous rest of her. Gabrielle, she said once, are you going to kill me? It was a legitimate question, an important one, so Sylar opened up her head and left her on a beach, and Gabrielle never did anything at all. It was answer enough for both of them.]

 

 

 

 

**3**

 

There's a time where she manages to convince herself that the whole thing is a dream, a story half-remembered as she drifts between wakefulness and rest. It wouldn't be such a stretch to think that the whole thing is a nightmare, a long nightmare she can't manage to shake.

Yet there are those impossible objects that exist here, that couldn't possibly exist if this were just one long disturbing dream. She can read books, even ones she has never read before. She can see photographs from albums in the shop downstairs. Too many details, too many to avoid. Too many for this to be imaginary.

Still, there are the few odd things that happen every once in a while. The border of the city as unreachable as ever, first the illness, then a storm rolling overhead, winds blowing so fast she can't fly against them, let alone walk. Two years in she goes into a bookstore, and nearly everything is gone, books turned over the shelves or burned or simply absent, but she can't explain why, not ever. If the city had been deserted so quickly, things uprooted and turned over, who had stopped to pull books from shelves?

She rereads _The Pillars of the Earth_ and decides not to think so hard about it. She'll have time enough for these things.

By her own hand, she has all the time in the world.

 

 

 

 

[She can remember that time on the plaza, the way Peter had lit up like that, all bright and overflowing. Like a shooting star. She can remember the feeling at last, like she was finally the victor, like she was _finally_ free to - And then there was the sword in her stomach, and Sylar couldn't really feel much of anything anymore.]

 

 

 

 

**5**

 

It could be an auditory hallucination. That's the first thought that passes through her mind when she hears the shouting in the streets. It's been long enough at least; she probably should've gone crazy before this, she's had years to do so.

She ignores the shouting and goes back to her work, trusting that eventually the voice will quiet down until it fades away altogether. She hopes not permanently, though. It's been silent enough as it is.

It goes on a while, the shouting. The hallucination, she reminds herself. It seems to get louder at times, then fade away, and just when she thinks it's stopped, the sound starts up again. She does wonder why her mind chose Peter Petrelli's voice, out of all the options in the world.

She figures it out when the door to the shop rings, and Peter is standing there, in the doorframe, all tall and thin and blocking out the light.

"Sylar?"

 

 

 

 

[So her father wasn't who she thought he would be. Disappointments like this happen, her mother used to tell her whenever something went wrong. If she lost something or if she was stood up on a date (this only happened once: both the date and the being stood up) or if she was asking about why her father left them. So she went to see her biological father, the person who is arguably responsible for everything she ever was or is or will be, and he isn't what she thought he would be. The real tragedy, Sylar decides, is that for all of her smarts, she didn't see it coming.]

 

 

 

 

**8**

 

She had been to every edge of the city, every part, either on foot or by air, and she knows that this wall was never there before. It's been a week since Peter's sudden appearance and she hasn't seen him since then, just knows he's here from the dwindling supply of food in the supermarket.

That doesn't make him real, some part of her says. That doesn't make any of this real. But it is, she knows. It always has been.

She sees him again at the wall.

He doesn't say anything, just flicks his eyes away from her face, some reflex he must've had before all of this, when he didn't want to speak to someone he recognized. It doesn't work here, of course. They're the only survivors in this city, he knows this as well as her.

She avoids looking in his direction for as long as he does, running her fingers back and forth against the brick, leaning back as she reads her book. Finally, Peter catches her eye, and he nods in some semblance of a greeting.

They stay there for a while, not talking. Coexisting, she thinks they used to call it, when two parties shared space, the same resources, the same ground to walk on. Breathing the same air.

 

 

 

 

[She was between two places, a man's body and the ground, her skirt hitched up around her waist. She had been screaming, her mouth had been open. Gabrielle can't remember why.]

 

 

 

 

**13**

 

"Hit me," she says only once, on the roof, overlooking the city. "Go ahead, Peter." He's got his hands on her shoulders. She wonders if he might push her off. Times like these, times when it matters, are the only instances that she finds him difficult to read.

"Sylar," he growls, angry at her, murderously so. Not that he could kill her, not like she killed his brother, tried to kill his mother, tried to kill him. This close, his eyes could be blacker than hers.

He says nothing else, only pushes her away and walks to the stairs. He doesn't turn to see if she will follow. He already knows she will.

 

 

 

 

[The first time, in that high school, the way she had followed the shine of Claire's blonde hair. Peter pushed her over the edge of the roof, and they fell. She had been conscious, and so had he, and when he saw her face his eyes widened. You, he had said, asked maybe, and his hand had reached out as if to touch her hair.]

 

 

 

 

**21**

 

She can go months without seeing him at all. He gets mad, shouts at her over the unfairness of it all, over his brother's death, over being trapped here in this nightmare with her. She believes him sometimes, that it's nothing more than a dream, but still there is the aisles of the stores with the inventory spilled out on the floor and the books still with every word.

He only seeks her out a few times, in the first three years. When the market empties out and he wants to know where else to find food, when he wants to talk for the sake of talking, scream for the sake of screaming, see someone else's eyes. She doesn't know where he goes, what he does when he isn't with her, and he never volunteers the information.

Once, he shows up at the shop and just stands in the doorway, watching her work on the clocks ( _the timepieces_ , some part of her, one she had tried so hard to kill, whispers). She doesn't look up, although her hands shake a little as she clears her workspace.

"Are you sorry?"

She glances up. "Excuse me?"

"Are you sorry," he repeats, "for what you did?"

She nods, her throat seeming to close up a little.

He nods in return, his mouth turning down, his brow furrowing. He seems about to yell, about to lose whatever composure he has left, but instead he forces out, "good," and leaves as quickly as he came.

 

 

 

 

[I deserve it, she had yelled once, one of them, Sylar or Gabrielle, she can't tell anymore. They're the same, after all this time, they're the same. She had been crying, and most of her hated that, hated the way her voice betrayed her and cracked in two. I'm sorry, for all of it. I just wanted, she had said, and then couldn't finish the sentence. Peter had just stared, his face blank. You do, he said, pouring into his voice what he couldn't inflict on her body, not without her throwing the first punch. Some misplaced sense of honor. You deserve all of it, Sylar. But Emma doesn't.]

 

 

 

 

**34**

 

At the wall, surrounded by brick dust and nothing else, he presses her against the wall and pins her wrists. He had been shouting, he had been angry, but the hows and the reasons why are escaping her memory. He seems too close, suddenly, Peter and his black eyes and the calamity of his breath against her skin.

He tucks his head against the crook of her neck, his hair tickling her, and she doesn't speak, hardly thinks to move, for fear it might break whatever spell this is.

Without warning, he releases her, steps back. He straightens his jacket, turns up the collar, and walks away. He doesn't look back once.

 

 

 

 

[He is always the first to leave. It doesn't matter who _he_ is.]

 

 

 

 

**55**

 

At the wall, with his sledgehammer on the ground and the sky black from a night that doesn't exist, that is filled with fog and pollution from people that don't exist, he turns suddenly and presses her against the wall. Like the first time, she doesn't move, just waits and holds her breath and stares, chin tilted up and eyes meeting his without blinking. Daring him, although to do what she can't tell.

He leans forward, and for a second she thinks he might kiss her, might crush her mouth against his, but he turns at the last second and his head lands at her neck, just under her jaw. He opens his mouth at the skin there, her pulse beating hot and erratic underneath his lips.

Gabrielle inhales sharply, her fingers curling into his shirt, at his back, and his, in turn, grasp at her waist like reaching for something desperately needed. She's never seen him desperate. Perhaps that's why he won't look her in the eye.

Peter abruptly bends, his hands pulling at her jeans and tugging them down until he can pull them away from her feet, leaving her naked and shivering from the waist down, then he stands again and peels her shirt away, reaches around and unclasps her bra and lets it fall to the ground between them.

She wonders, for a moment, if he takes pleasure in this as well, seeing her exposed like this. Open and vulnerable like Sylar never was. She wonders where that part of herself has fled to, why she has been abandoned at a time like this. She watches as he undoes his belt, pulls himself free without undressing any further. This imbalance, with her all of skin showing and nearly all of his covered, was intentional, she knows. Subtlety was never any of the Petrellis strong suit.

He lifts her underneath her thighs, pulling her against his hips and pushing her against the wall, the brick scratching uncomfortably at the her back. He still can't meet her eyes, for whatever reason, but he has lost that uncertainty from before and his movements are faster, suddenly, fervent and hasty as he moves his hands down her legs, as she wraps them around his waist, the fabric of his jeans rubbing against the inside of her thighs, as she moves her arm around his shoulder and clenches his jacket in her hand.

He's hard against her, then inside her; she wonders absently when he decided to do this. When he first wanted her (if he wanted her).

It's quiet for a while, except for the sounds of their breathing, the jingle of his belt buckle against his zipper, the rhythm of his body crashing into hers and her body crashing between him and the wall. She makes noises sometimes, her breath hitching, a moan escaping her, and he pulls one of his hands from her leg and wraps it against her neck, not choking her, just there, his thumb stroking the skin underneath.

For his part, he makes so sound, except his breath, harsh and labored in her ear. For a moment, he pauses, inhales like he might say something, a name, maybe even her own, but instead he groans, the sound strangling in his throat.

She comes before he does, and again she knows this is by design, his way of proving to her that even now he can make her come undone, piece by agonizing piece, before he allows his control to slip. He swears, once, when he shudders and spends himself at last. It sounds like the word was torn from him.

Peter lets her down, and Gabrielle slides against him as he pulls himself back together, physically and otherwise, increment by increment. Her back feels raw from the rough scratch of the brick though she knows the cuts have already healed, her insides ache from the lingering feeling of him between her legs. He meets her gaze only once, and his eyes seem almost - then he blinks and the expression is gone, vanished from existence. Oblivion, Peter, and his black eyes staring into hers.

His hand, which has returned to the smooth skin of her waist, feels like an accusation.

 

 

 

 

[Are you in love with her, she asks once, the girl you're trying to save. He glances away, wipes the sweat from his forehead and picks the sledgehammer up again. It's been hours, she thinks. He should take a break. No, he says finally, and swings.]

 

 

 

 

**89**

 

It happens again. Not in the same way as the first time, but it happens again and keeps happening. He finds her in the shop and scatters the parts she was working on and bends her over her desk. He finds her on the roof and covers her body with his and when it's done he gives her his jacket to wrap around herself, her limbs sore and shuddering. He finds her in her room and drags his mouth over her skin and fucks her on the cot where she sleeps.

He doesn't ever kiss her.

He must think of it as some sort of betrayal.

(She fucks him once, on a bench in the park. It's spring, and the falling petals get in her hair, and his hands around her waist are cold. He says her name, mumbles _Gabrielle_ against her collarbone, and then he shakes apart and then it's over once again.)

 

 

 

 

[I should've been your family. I should've been your brother or your sister. I should've gotten more than what I was given, I should've had the freedom to give more than I gave. I shouldn't have been forced down with drugs and guns and hands and hands and hands. I should have lived without wanting to die. I should have died without having been killed. I should have more. I want more. Look at what I was given, Peter. Look at what I did. Look at what I did to you. Look at what they did to me. Look at what you're doing to me. What can I _do_?]

 

 

 

 

**144**

 

She makes circles in the parking lot with the wheels of a bike, figure eights and spirals, skimming through puddles from the last time it rained. Grass is overgrown through the cracks in the pavement; the weeds sprout up with no one there to pull them. She had considered keeping some of this up, in the earlier days of this endeavor (this life sentence), had thought maybe she ought to keep New York as it always was. But still, they sprout up and grow roots and she leaves them be. What else is there to do?

Peter stays sometimes in the shop overnight, when he's too tired to walk back to wherever it is he stays. They have the city to themselves, yet they are drawn to each other, the only warm bodies left. The only bodies left at all.

He never says he wants her in so many words, but Gabrielle has learned to read the signs. His presence in itself is sometimes such a hint, but this is not always reliable, as some days he seems content to do nothing but talk to her, argue with her, scream at her until his voice goes hoarse and then collapse into her desk chair to sleep. Sometimes he talks around a subject, trying to get it to tire quickly and easily, and then he leans forward and draws her hair out of its style and then there is the hand on her bare shoulder, shrugging her out of her shirt. Once, he found her on her cot and pulled her toward him by the ankle, but after a moment of this he thought better of the gesture and slid his hand up her skirt. Had it been too familiar, she wondered later, too tender?

She makes a loop on the pavement and abandons the bike on the curb. No need to worry about thieves anymore, at least.

He's rough with her during the act, making it obvious that she should see this as something for him and any benefit she gains is merely an unfortunate side-effect. Yet there is a certain way he handles her, she can't tell if it's just something he does, if it means anything at all. He smooths his hand over the bruises he makes on her thighs, her wrists, watching them as they fade and then disappear entirely. His mouth lingers at her shoulder longer than it should. He presses his temple against hers and sounds for a moment like he might say something - all she ever hears is his breath rushing out, and she shivers.

Peter, she thinks sometimes, Peter and those hands and those eyes.

Gabrielle walks the length of the street in front of her house, kicking every stone she sees. By the time the sun, real or imaginary, sets, Peter is waiting at the door. He holds her against it and she unravels under him, again and again.

 

 

 

 

[I loved you, Gabrielle, someone says. It doesn't matter who. Now give me what I need.]

 

 

 

 

**233**

 

Peter sweeps his arm over the tools on her desk, sends them flying. Gabrielle reaches out her hand and they still in the air, floating just above the floor.

"Don't you understand," he shouts, "I just need -"

"You just need what? My cooperation? I could stay here, I won't hurt anyone anymore. You want to risk bringing me back out for the sake of your girlfriend?" She clenches her hand into a fist, and the metal instruments clatter to the floor. "Why are you here? Give me a real reason to go with you, not the bullshit one you've been using for the last four years."

"Because -" He runs his hands through his hair, his watch getting caught on the end before he pulls it away. It's seven seconds early, but he won't let her fix it. "Because I'm trying to help you."

"You're trying to help yourself. If you didn't think she -"

"Emma -"

"would die without my help you wouldn't even be here. I killed your brother, I can kill you. I can kill her. You're not here for my sake, you're here for your own." She can feel the edges of her fingers warming. Any second now they'll light up like Christmas. Like Elle. "You're just like the rest of them, you've never cared about me, you care about what I can do, you care about your bottom-line, your darling girl waiting for you to swoop in and save her like the hero you are. You won't tell her about here, _years alone with a murderer, Emma, of course we wouldn't, you're the only one_. Of course, Peter. You, so noble. You fuck me and then hang me out to dry and then you come back, _make me feel good, it's just us now, it's not even real_. You're here for yourself, for your conscience and your cock and your girlfriend waiting for you back home. _It was nothing, Emma, I would never_. Fuck you. Give me a real reason."

"You killed my brother," he snarls. "The least you could do is try to make up for it."

She laughs, but it's cold. She can't remember how they ended up here. "Being locked inside my own head is penance enough. Your watchdog thinks so. And you already know I'm sorry. I will not blindly follow you on the off-chance you ever forgive me."

"You need to -"

"I don't need to do anything. Give me a reason to -"

"Because we need you out there," he interrupts, grabbing her at the shoulders. But instead of shaking her, he's still, she can feel his fingers warm through the fabric of her shirt. "Something bad is coming. You're better than all of us, you always were. We need you out there. I need you."

Then suddenly he's crowding her against the desk, his hands on her shoulders have moved to her waist and he pulls her to him. Her arms wrap around him, her fingers running through the hair at the nape of his neck. She can't remember the last time he touched her without taking her clothes off afterwards.

His mouth is pressed against her hairline; he kisses her temple.

 

 

 

 

[You deserve the world. Her mother is crying, and her skin is still smooth and unbroken, her blood still within her body. Like this, her hands still and calm, she could almost be a real person. You were always so beautiful.]

 

 

 

 

**377**

 

There is this one time, in their fifth year together (she thinks that and immediately pushes the thought away: it makes it seem like an anniversary, not a punishment). The sun has already set over the wall, and Gabrielle sits gazing at it, her legs tucked underneath her. Deliberately killing time.

Something she won't ever admit, not even to herself: she likes the wall. It's comfortingly solid. It keeps the bad things in.

She hears Peter before she sees him. He walks up in what he must think is a leisurely manner and stands next to her.

"It's not real," he says.

She shrugs, not making an effort to look in his direction. She can feel his eyes on her. It prickles her skin. "I know."

"It's not real," he repeats slowly, settling down beside her as he speaks, "but we are, Gabrielle." He takes her hand, turns it over so he can see her palm, and brushes his lips against her wrist. "We're right here."

He leans forward and presses a kiss to her forehead. Then her mouth. Then the rest of her.

(His hands might shake as he tugs the ribbon from her hair.)

 

 

  

 

[You're alright. You're real.  _Promise?_  Yeah, I promise.]

 

 

 

 

 

**610**

 

"Are you in love with her," she asks, "the girl you're trying to save?"

He stops, looks at her directly even with the bricks scattered around them. Like the petals of flowers, she thinks. Like white petals in her hair.

"Which one?"

 

 

 

 

[Wake up, Gabrielle, Peter says. Time to go.]

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
